“I—I can’t. He’s too powerful.”
I feared it was so.
“Please help me.”
I want to, but I’m not sure what to do.
Lil’s words angered Karigan. “You’re the First Rider—you have to know!”
Ghost eyes blinked. The First Rider I may be, all-knowing I am not. That power is reserved for the gods alone.
“Help me . . .” Karigan’s anger dissipated into desperation. “He’ll return.”
I’ll do what I can to buffer your mind, but it hasn’t worked so far.
Wild magic roiled in Karigan’s arm. She imagined it to be some hungry, insatiable beast that would feed on her life and energy till nothing was left. It allowed him to control her. If only she could flee and hide, but where could she hide?
The fog that clouded her mind continued to break, letting in sunshine. She felt lighter than she had in a while. Lighter, more aware, and more able to think.
Wild magic had done more than allowed Mornhavon to control her. Maybe, she thought, it wasn’t a matter of hiding where, but when.
Because of the wild magic, she had traveled into the past, and forward into the future. And, if she were to have a “future,” she would have to take a stand now.
She absently stroked Condor’s neck as she considered the madness of her thoughts. Abruptly she gazed into Lil Ambrioth’s eyes.
“There is something we can try, but I’ll need your help.”
Karigan told Lil her plan. When she finished, Lil’s eyes blurred from side to side as though she were shaking her head.
During my day, she said, I was called insane by many for my actions. This is easily more insane than anything I ever did.
“It won’t work without you,” Karigan said. Part of her hoped Lil would refuse, but she knew it must be done. Something had to be done.
Pray my energy holds.
“Our brooch should hold us together.”
“Karigan,” Dale called, “what are you standing over there for? Come see Alton!”
“Alton?” Karigan turned away from Lil in surprise. When she saw him, she didn’t know whether to jump for joy, or to run and give him a hug.
She trotted toward where he stood at the breach, then stumbled to a halt. She took in his familiar form, the brown head of hair, the beard that had started to grow on his strong chin. He was woefully thin. When he saw her coming, he smiled.
Maybe it was tears of joy blurring her vision, but she couldn’t quite make out his features clearly. And his smile . . . There was something wrong with it. It lacked his easy-going humor. It was dead.
Past, present, future. Memory. Memory of Lil facing Hadriax el Fex at the base of Watch Hill, only it hadn’t been el Fex. Memory of illusion.
Her saber rang as it cleared its sheath, and she ran screaming at the illusion of Alton D’Yer. The Riders around her reacted slowly at first, shocked by her drawn saber, shocked by her scream. Then real time resumed.
“She means to kill him!” Dale.
She charged past Dale and Captain Mapstone, raising her sword as she went. Even the illusion appeared surprised. She ran until a giant in green knocked her sprawling to the ground, her breath whooshing from her lungs. Ty snatched her sword from her hand and the giant lifted her to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her so she could hardly move.
“Let me go, Garth!” She squirmed violently, but he held her firmly against himself.
“What are you doing?” he demanded. “That’s Alton, your friend—remember?”
Oh yes, she remembered.
“Not my friend,” she said, “illusion!”
“—been acting odd of late,” Ty said of her, and there was general agreement among the Riders.
“Not Alton—the wraith!”
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.” The voice was Alton’s, but the intelligence behind it was not. “I thought she cared for me.”
Karigan recognized the taint of Mornhavon in the illusion, and now she knew why he had left her, so he could attend to this illusion. It was he who had given Varadgrim the appearance of Hadriax el Fex a thousand years ago, it was he who gave him Alton’s form now.
Captain Mapstone stood before her, full of concern. “Karigan?”
“It’s a trap—the wraith—not Alton!”
Garth was strong, but Karigan had trained with Arms Master Drent and learned how to bring a strong man down. An elbow to the gut, a heel to his instep. She twisted her leg behind his and shoved him off balance. Down he went like a massive tree.
Karigan ripped her saber from Ty’s grasp and held it before her to stave off her fellow Riders, her friends. They put their hands to the hilts of their own swords, and she could only guess what was going through their minds. Yes, they would be thinking, Karigan has finally gone mad. She wasn’t sure they were far off the mark.
It wasn’t her friends she wanted to engage, however. Her focus was the mind behind the illusion, and the only way to get him to do what she needed him to do was to goad him. Goad him as he had goaded her. She tried to push back her fear.
“A paltry illusion,” she shouted at Varadgrim. “The captain knows the truth of my words.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the captain quickly assess her. Then the captain ordered the Riders to arm themselves. The swords, however, were held toward Varadgrim, not Karigan.
Her relief was minor, considering the magnitude of what she was attempting to do. “You are not as powerful as you think,” she told Mornhavon.
“Girl, I could pick up a boulder and drop it upon you.” It was revolting to hear the words spoken with Alton’s voice. “I have seen in your mind your revulsion at the things that could be done to those you hold dear. Those things I could make reality.”
Bile rose up in her throat, but she must not let the fear overtake her. “I don’t think so. You are so weak you must use others to do your bidding.”
He laughed. The illusion around Varadgrim dissolved, and Karigan prepared herself for what she thought would happen next, but it didn’t.
Garth was suddenly after her, swinging his sword. By the bewildered look in his eyes, Karigan knew Mornhavon had seized control of him. Karigan blocked his blows.
“You’ll have to do better!” she cried, and she ran away from Garth; she ran for the breach, away from the Riders, and right past Varadgrim.
Yes, run to me. Mornhavon’s voice was low and breathy in her mind.
THE VESSEL OF MORNHAVON
Laren watched in bewilderment as Garth fell limp to the ground and Karigan charged toward the breach and vanished through it. Then an Eletian emerged on the edge of the encampment and fluidly took an archer’s stance, spines bristling on his shoulders and forearms. His bow was drawn taut, a white arrow nocked to the bowstring. The steel tip shone in the sun like a star.
His eyes narrowed as he focused his line of sight, and loosed the bowstring. The arrow sang, a beautiful sound as it sped by them and into the breach.
Laren cried out, and thought to go to Karigan, but an enormous winged creature rose above the breach and flicked out its tongue as it surveyed them. The wraith bared steel. Not a sword of ages ago, but new steel, and from the look of it, forged by the king’s own smiths. Undoubtedly it had been taken from a dead soldier.
The Riders and soldiers were caught between two horrors—the winged monstrosity above, and the wraith.
The shadow of its wings moved over Laren and she flinched as the creature screeched at them. It lunged down and she watched helplessly as it clenched Dale in its talons. The Rider screamed and kicked as she was lifted from the ground several feet, the avian flapping its wings and creating a fetid wind. Dale’s shoulder and chest blossomed with blood.
Riders and soldiers ran to aid her, but the creature threatened them with its sharp beak, its head swiveling on a long, snakelike neck.
Ty evaded the avian’s beak and hacked at the talons that held Dale, partially severing the avian’s leg. It jerked up, and Dale cried agai
n. With another strike from Ty’s sword, the leg was severed and Dale dropped to the ground, talons still hooked in her shoulder.
The avian rose into the sky with blood showering from the stump of its leg. Singing arrows, harmonious and deadly, streaked through the air and thudded into the avian’s breast and beneath its wing. It screamed and plummeted earthward, and all beneath scattered. When it hit the ground, dust rose up around it. Its neck convulsed, then it moved no more. Smoke curled up from its wounds.
Laren ran to Dale’s side, and was joined by Yates. “We need to . . .” But he was already prying the talons out of Dale’s shoulder. Justin hovered nearby. “Ban dages!” she told him.
Justin nodded and whistled to his horse. Several horses had scattered at the sight of the avian, but Justin’s mare trotted over immediately and he set to foraging through his saddlebags.
Laren was both impressed and jealous—Bluebird had never answered to her whistle.
As they worked on Dale, the rest of her Riders, along with the soldiers, hemmed in the wraith. The wraith seemed unconcerned, but continued to stand there, neither engaging in a fight or acquiescing. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
Laren glanced where she had last seen the Eletian, but he was gone. She wondered where he went, why he didn’t provide them counsel regarding the wraith. Why would he shoot an arrow at Karigan, then shoot down the avian to save the rest of them?
All was silence, except for Dale’s weak moaning. Yates was working as swiftly as he could on her wounds, but she had lost a good deal of blood.
The silence was then shattered by cries issued from the other side of the breach. Not human cries, not quite animal, but ululating cries that stopped Laren’s heart.
Groundmites.
They leaped through the breach like a pack of feral dogs, snarling and howling. They bore thick branches as clubs, and wore no armor. They were more primitive, more feral, than the others she’d seen. Some wore hide coverings, but many wore nothing at all, except for their shaggy, mud-colored fur.
As they poured through the breach and swarmed past the wraith, Laren did the only reasonable thing she could do when faced with overwhelming odds: she called, “Retreat!”
Karigan clambered over the rubble in the breach and ran. She ran as she never had before, knowing she needed to reach the forest before Mornhavon overcame her entirely, and before he learned her true intent.
“Coward!” she cried at Mornhavon. She could feel the heat of his anger burning within her, then nothing. He left as though distracted. Distracted by other things he must attend to.
“Damnation,” she muttered. This wasn’t going exactly as she planned.
Her brooch stirred, so she knew at least Lil was still with her. The wild magic twisted violently in her arm, as if roused by its return to Blackveil.
Paying no attention to the spindly trees above or the muck underfoot, she continued to run, intent only on what she needed to accomplish.
Down! Lil commanded.
Karigan fell to the moist earth. An arrow sang overhead, and when she looked up, it had embedded itself into a tree trunk. White against black, it absorbed all the light in this gloomy place, and it glowed. Tree bark peeled off around it as though it had struck a mortal wound.
It was an Eletian arrow, from an Eletian who wanted her dead.
Seems to me the Eletians have gotten a bit wrong-headed of late, Lil said.
Karigan couldn’t agree more. “I think maybe it’s time for you to go. You’ll be listening for me?”
Truly, Lil said, and she left.
Karigan lay there, suddenly feeling very alone in the threatening environs of the forest.
And now there was something new to worry about.
Shapes emerged in the mist, and feet pounded the ground. Great hulking shapes that howled and screamed. Karigan threw her arms over her head and lay as flat as she could, hoping the groundmites would overlook her.
They’re going for the breach, she thought in dismay. They’re going to attack the Riders.
And quite suddenly, he was there again, in her mind. Yes, they’re going to annihilate your Riders.
“Lil!” Karigan cried, and she clasped her hand around her brooch, and there was nothing but the overwhelming blackness that was him, amid the squalling snow.
Distantly she heard the notes of the Rider call, and she felt herself carried away.
Lil didn’t think the gods would be pleased with her for bending the rules this way, but she had never been one to follow rules anyway. If she had, Mornhavon the Black and his forces would have overcome the League long ago.
And her reward? she thought with grim humor. This. Tangling with Mornhavon again. Mornhavon who should have been shattered and altogether dead, crawling tormented through all five hells for all eternity, or at least through the equivalent wrought by his empire’s own religion.
Instead, he had somehow survived through time, defying the gods. His body was gone, yes, but his conscious mind remained. He was as dangerous and warped as ever.
Lil walked through Blackveil, but in some distant time in the future. She had no way of telling how far she had come, really, but she hoped it would be far enough to win Sacoridia and its neighboring countries time to prepare to bring an end to Mornhavon the Black, once and for all.
The forest was still, the mist much lighter. In fact, she could discern healthy green growth poking through the black wilt and decay. It seemed that with time, the forest had begun to heal, and this gave her hope that what Karigan planned would actually succeed. Or had succeeded. Or . . . Time was too confusing.
Even as a spirit, Lil was not permitted to see beyond the veil of time, to know what the future would bring, unless like now, she defied the gods and visited.
Here she was, but still there was the unknowing. What would become of Karigan? Even if the plan was a success, there was a good chance the young woman’s life would be forfeited.
An acceptable risk. Lil had taken many risks herself, many for which she would have gladly laid down her life if it meant success. Yet, she had grown fond of the young woman, and knew what risks she had taken on her own behalf.
Defying the gods brought about a different kind of risk. Should she arouse Aeryc’s wrath, she might find herself dwelling in the hells as punishment. The dead just weren’t supposed to dally in the lives of the living. At least, not to this extent.
So she waited, fingering her brooch, waiting for an indication from Karigan to pull her through time. It was an audacious plan: Karigan would become the vessel that would carry Mornhavon to the future, and leave him there. That was how the Sacoridians would gain the time to prepare to deal with the menace. It was an imperfect plan. It might not work at all. She might be a hundred years in the future, or one, which would be of no use at all.
Lil!
The cry was faint. It barely pulsed through her brooch, but she had heard. Still clasping her brooch, she raised her horn to her lips and sounded the Rider call. She pulled on Karigan, on her brooch, the brooch that made them one. Wild magic might allow Karigan to travel, but now it had to be Lil’s influence that determined to when.
She strained to pull Karigan through time, like a fisherman with a huge swordfish hooked on his line. It was hard drawing her forward. When she had been in the past, Lil’s own corporeal form had been an anchor. But not now, since her corporeal form did not exist in the future.
She strained till she thought she must consume all her essence. Would there be nothing left of her with which to aid Karigan?
Before she saw them, she felt their presence, Karigan and Mornhavon both. Karigan’s was a tiny particle of life, surrounded by the murk that was Mornhavon. Her body appeared, curled into a fetal position on the forest floor.
The forest subtly responded to Mornhavon’s presence. The trees and plants seemed to thrum and bend toward Karigan.
The plan had worked, this far at least. Karigan had instructed Lil to abandon her in the future if Mornha
von would not leave her mind. Lil believed she deserved better.
I’ve nothing to lose, Lil thought, except the niceties of the heavens should I be made to dwell in the hells. There was also the possibility that Aeryc would banish her from existence altogether.
She used the brooch, used it as Karigan once had in the past upon Kendroa Mor, so they could merge.
When she did so, she found Karigan’s presence diminished by Mornhavon’s seething hatred. And what was with all the snow?
She blinked through the flurries, and saw him, a dark silhouette. He saw her, too.
YOU.
The world that was Karigan’s mind quavered at the force of his voice.
Be gone, Lil replied. You are not fit to occupy this space.
I do as I wish.
How like a spoiled child he sounded. Lil glanced about through the snow, but saw no sign of Karigan, nor any spark of awareness. This did not bode well, and she supposed it called for drastic action. She didn’t waste time.
She clasped her brooch and willed herself to occupy Karigan, to merge totally, mind, soul, and body. From Karigan’s memories, Lil knew that the previous bearer of her brooch, F’ryan Coblebay, had done this to help Karigan overcome an opponent during a swordfight.
Her essence flowed through Karigan’s body, through her limbs and to the tips of her fingers and toes. She expanded in Karigan’s mind, shielding it to restrict Mornhavon’s influence. For Lil, it was like drawing on a warm cloak, though Karigan’s body was cooler than it ought to be.
She smelled loam and felt it beneath her cheek. A fern tickled her neck, and there was the warmth of sunlight gently blanketing her. For one who had walked in the spirit world for so long, this sensory awakening was ecstasy.
Mornhavon attacked her shield, chipping away at it, and Lil knew she couldn’t hold it indefinitely. She made Karigan sit up, open her eyes, and draw her longknife. That gave Mornhavon pause.
She turned the knife so the bladetip was touching Karigan’s ribs, below her breast. She gripped the hilt with both hands.
You wouldn’t, Mornhavon said.
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